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Sardine Sandwiches

A sandwich made with mashed sardines, mustard dressing, cayenne pepper, sea salt, and buttered bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,430 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sardine Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sardines

  1. Drain the sardines and remove the skin.

Make the filling

  1. Mash the sardines into a paste with Green Seal Mustard Dressing.

  2. Season the mixture with cayenne pepper and coarse sea salt.

Assemble

  1. Spread the sardine paste on thin slices of buttered bread.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Mustard + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,484 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Fine boneless sardines
Provide the main filling, mashed into a spreadable paste that carries the flavor.
Green seal mustard dressing
Binds the mashed sardines into a smooth paste and adds tangy, sharp flavor.
Buttered bread
Gives a soft, rich base that holds the paste and adds fat and moisture.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, bread):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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